Increasing number of women acquiring firearm license in Punjab
3 Apr, 2012While the Punjabi men’s love for weapons is legendary, information shows that the state’s women are fast catching up in terms of acquiring arms and learning how to use them. And these weapons are not just an addition to the family weapon list with Information obtained through an application under the Right to Information Act (RTI) shows that in Punjab, nearly 31, 300 arms licenses have been issued to women and 31,026 of them have in actuality purchased arms.
The Bathinda Member of Parliament(MP) and wife of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal – Mrs. Harsimrat Kaur Badal has permission to keep three weapons which can be carried any where in India.
The city-wise break shows that Patiala leads the license tally with 1,361 followed by Jalandhar with 1,032 arms licences out of which 162 licenses in Jalandhar district are owned by women who stay overseas. The other cities and the number of women license are - Amritsar (962), Mukstar (768), Faridkot(372), Moga (669), Mohali (690), Bathinda (162), Ferozepur (79), Gurdaspur (396), Pathankot (182), Fatehgarh Sahib (161), Hoshiarpur (352) and Mansa (16).
The love for gun amongst men of Punjab, greater gender equality where more women are actually learning how to shoot and the changing lifestyle where women are forced to travel long distances for work sometimes at odd hours have been attributed as the causes for this change. These calls for the law enforcing agencies like Police to take a notice of the new trend.